This invention relates generally to the field of food processing and more particularly to the field of an apparatus to apply coatings or breadings to food products.
Many food products are covered with a coating or breading to enhance the flavor and facilitate cooking of the product. Where preparation time is not of great concern, the food product, such as a chicken breast, can be manually coated by rolling the chicken breast in the coating material and patting or massaging the coating material directly on the chicken. Manual breading or coating is well-known to provide the most complete and uniform coverage for a particular food item.
However, in commercial settings where preparation time is of the essence, manual breading has given way to machines that automatically coat a food product. Food product coating machines come in different varieties that are often dependent upon the type of food being breaded. Many commercial and fast-food restaurants use a drum type breader to coat food, such as parts of chicken, with a breading or fine flour mixture. Some traditional breaders include a tilted rotatable drum with an apertured interior wall that is configured to tumble the food product as it is gravity fed to the output end of the drum. In some breaders, elements are affixed to the interior wall of the rotating drum to help tumble the food product as it progresses along the length of the drum. One exemplary breader is that described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,001,920 for an Automatic Food Product Breading Apparatus, the description of which is incorporated herein by reference.
In traditional breaders, coated food product exits the drum via an opening in the output end of the drum. Whether the food product is gravity fed or pushed out of the drum, some amount of used coating material exits the drum along with the coated food product. Generally, this used coating material is collected in some receptacle and is either discarded or is reused. If the used coating material is discarded, inefficiency exists in the breading process as some of the product resources are wasted. If the used coating material is reused, inefficiency exists in the breading process as some of the time and labor resources are spent collecting and sifting the used coating material to be reused.
There is a need for an automatic coating or breading apparatus that can reclaim used coating material from the drum and prepare it to be reused. Optimally, the apparatus would automatically collect and sift the used coating material, while doing so in a high production, quick turn-around setting. There is a further need for a breading apparatus that minimizes the product resources wasted and/or the time and labor resources spent to coat food product.